This is the first chapter from a sweet fiction I'm in the process of writing that deals with the background and inner-workings of my highly radical and completely fuzzy little DiY Space Marine chapter. It's so fluffy you could probably prance around a green field full of flowers and cuddly bunnies with it. Seriously.
Anyhoo, I didn't want to start sharing any of it until I was sure that I would actually finish it (because I don't think I've ever finished any fiction... ever) and I've hit a bit of a rut - it's hard dividing your hobby time between painting the cool minis and writing cool fiction for the cool minis.
So I need some encouragement to keep going. Or someone to just tell me to stuff it and get a girlfriend. Either one would be appreciated in all honesty.
I
The final frontier.
The great emptiness.
Space.
The void.
It has been known by a myriad of names over the countless centuries, each vying to capture the unimaginable darkness of it. Though long dead poets and astronomers looked to the skies and sought to paint the heavens with their imaginations, none have ever come close to describing the sheer loneliness of the infinite dark. Dotted by pinpricks of light so miniscule and numerous as to be the most insignificant of particles; yet each representing a body of pure light and energy so great and magnificently powerful as to feed the maws of gods themselves, the inky blackness of universe pervades all and those foolish enough to voyage upon it are consumed by its all-encompassing nothingness.
Within the dome of the infinite darkness hung a single point of light, a blinking speck cast away inside a globe of pure black, alone amongst the infinity of its surroundings. Although in truth the ship was vast beyond comprehension, a behemoth of black adamantium plating and Gellar fields, its size was at the same time incomprehensibly small and insignificant; a meager fleck of nothing cast out into the cruel winds of the universe.
In a place where direction had no meaning, it hung as if suspended by an invisible thread that reached into the heavens. It hung, and waited.
There are no words to describe the Immaterium. It is a dimension that by its mere description that defies the meager vocabulary of those trapped in our futile and limited existence. It is madness and sanity, chaos and order, light and darkness, everything and nothing all at once, wrapped together and melded until the very paradox of its own existence screams out in an eternal cry of agony that exceeds the senses of men. Some go mad when they look upon it. Most turn away.
Before the dark splendor of the Ortus Mendum, the infinite blackness that pervaded everything turned to light. It flashed, as if casting off its usual somber colors in a display of brilliance that lasted only until those who saw it could register that it had occurred. A noise accompanied the phenomenon, a roiling boom that shook not the beams or the hull of the ship, but the minds and souls of those it carried. Twice more the heavens turned night into day; and then reality tore itself apart.
It was like the stretching of a fabric so fine as to contain neither threads nor seams. It bent and tore like a hole opening through the skin of the infinite darkness, as if the finger of a god had forced its way through the universe. From the gaping wound spilled the stuff of madness; a flood of energy and entropy and chaos that whirled and swam free from the opening, like blood evacuating a wound and the onlookers opened their eyes to see a billion colors shining out to meet them, arcs of lightning that flashed blue and green and silver all at once licking the surface of reality.
And through this hole the black ships came like predators following the scent of spilt ichor in their waters.
They arrived painfully close to the Ortus Mendum; too close. Proximity and collision alarms sounded about the ship’s command bridge, red warning lights blinking cross a multitude of panels and screens. Many of the crew closed their eyes, covered their faces and consigning their souls to the Emperor, for surely they would die upon impact. Those who were not so craven, however, witnessed the arrival of the enormous battleships with an awe that befit the vessel’s dread majesty and occult mystique. They arrived slowly enough so as not to impact the Ortus Mendum, perhaps for safety or perhaps to give the crew of the starship a moment to gaze upon the splendor of the arriving fleet.
The lead ship passed over the Ortus Mendum like a fell predator, speeding from its immaterial rift with a speed that belied its awesome size, smoothly riding the warp’s fickle currents. It was behemoth that dwarfed even the Ortus Mendum’s bulk, a giant of black battleplate bristling with enormous weapons batteries and vast launch bays. Its dark armor was inscribed painstakingly with texts and verses so vast and marred by the scars of countless battles that they might constitute the contents of an entire librariun on any Imperial world. The armored prow of the battleship was crowned by dozens of sensory antennae and communications arrays that jutted forward like the horns of a great, mythical creature, and these systems were protected by a pair of massive, parallel armor plates decorated with the depiction of the feathers of a predatory bird; but they appeared withered, damaged and broken, as if the avian they had belonged to was long dead, but whether this was due to the attentions of battle or the design of the artist was unclear.
At the close distance that the ship passed by the Ortus Mendum, the inscription of the vessel’s name on its prow was clearly visible.
Legacy of Perdition.
In the tumultuous wake of enormous flagship followed dozens of smaller craft. Frigates, strike cruisers, light escorts and support ships danced about the flanks of the huge barge like symbiotic fish feeding on skin of a larger creature. Two battle barges glided alongside the Legacy of Perdition; equal in size to their flagship but shadowed by their leader’s enigmatic glory. The fleet slid past the Ortus Mendum, flashing by the view ports that lined the ship’s command bridge, its member’s engines slowing their passage as it did so. It was then that the Ortus Mendum’s own engines engaged and the artificial gravity on the command bridge shifted slightly to compensate for the enormous centrifugal forces of the great ship coming about. The retreating fleet slid back into view as the Ortus Mendum turned to face it, accelerating to reach a set of coordinates that had recently appeared on the commander’s view screen and had been overlayed in a ghostly green trail of light over the main viewport; a path that led directly into the heart of the fleet.
Anyhoo, I didn't want to start sharing any of it until I was sure that I would actually finish it (because I don't think I've ever finished any fiction... ever) and I've hit a bit of a rut - it's hard dividing your hobby time between painting the cool minis and writing cool fiction for the cool minis.
So I need some encouragement to keep going. Or someone to just tell me to stuff it and get a girlfriend. Either one would be appreciated in all honesty.
I
The final frontier.
The great emptiness.
Space.
The void.
It has been known by a myriad of names over the countless centuries, each vying to capture the unimaginable darkness of it. Though long dead poets and astronomers looked to the skies and sought to paint the heavens with their imaginations, none have ever come close to describing the sheer loneliness of the infinite dark. Dotted by pinpricks of light so miniscule and numerous as to be the most insignificant of particles; yet each representing a body of pure light and energy so great and magnificently powerful as to feed the maws of gods themselves, the inky blackness of universe pervades all and those foolish enough to voyage upon it are consumed by its all-encompassing nothingness.
Within the dome of the infinite darkness hung a single point of light, a blinking speck cast away inside a globe of pure black, alone amongst the infinity of its surroundings. Although in truth the ship was vast beyond comprehension, a behemoth of black adamantium plating and Gellar fields, its size was at the same time incomprehensibly small and insignificant; a meager fleck of nothing cast out into the cruel winds of the universe.
In a place where direction had no meaning, it hung as if suspended by an invisible thread that reached into the heavens. It hung, and waited.
There are no words to describe the Immaterium. It is a dimension that by its mere description that defies the meager vocabulary of those trapped in our futile and limited existence. It is madness and sanity, chaos and order, light and darkness, everything and nothing all at once, wrapped together and melded until the very paradox of its own existence screams out in an eternal cry of agony that exceeds the senses of men. Some go mad when they look upon it. Most turn away.
Before the dark splendor of the Ortus Mendum, the infinite blackness that pervaded everything turned to light. It flashed, as if casting off its usual somber colors in a display of brilliance that lasted only until those who saw it could register that it had occurred. A noise accompanied the phenomenon, a roiling boom that shook not the beams or the hull of the ship, but the minds and souls of those it carried. Twice more the heavens turned night into day; and then reality tore itself apart.
It was like the stretching of a fabric so fine as to contain neither threads nor seams. It bent and tore like a hole opening through the skin of the infinite darkness, as if the finger of a god had forced its way through the universe. From the gaping wound spilled the stuff of madness; a flood of energy and entropy and chaos that whirled and swam free from the opening, like blood evacuating a wound and the onlookers opened their eyes to see a billion colors shining out to meet them, arcs of lightning that flashed blue and green and silver all at once licking the surface of reality.
And through this hole the black ships came like predators following the scent of spilt ichor in their waters.
They arrived painfully close to the Ortus Mendum; too close. Proximity and collision alarms sounded about the ship’s command bridge, red warning lights blinking cross a multitude of panels and screens. Many of the crew closed their eyes, covered their faces and consigning their souls to the Emperor, for surely they would die upon impact. Those who were not so craven, however, witnessed the arrival of the enormous battleships with an awe that befit the vessel’s dread majesty and occult mystique. They arrived slowly enough so as not to impact the Ortus Mendum, perhaps for safety or perhaps to give the crew of the starship a moment to gaze upon the splendor of the arriving fleet.
The lead ship passed over the Ortus Mendum like a fell predator, speeding from its immaterial rift with a speed that belied its awesome size, smoothly riding the warp’s fickle currents. It was behemoth that dwarfed even the Ortus Mendum’s bulk, a giant of black battleplate bristling with enormous weapons batteries and vast launch bays. Its dark armor was inscribed painstakingly with texts and verses so vast and marred by the scars of countless battles that they might constitute the contents of an entire librariun on any Imperial world. The armored prow of the battleship was crowned by dozens of sensory antennae and communications arrays that jutted forward like the horns of a great, mythical creature, and these systems were protected by a pair of massive, parallel armor plates decorated with the depiction of the feathers of a predatory bird; but they appeared withered, damaged and broken, as if the avian they had belonged to was long dead, but whether this was due to the attentions of battle or the design of the artist was unclear.
At the close distance that the ship passed by the Ortus Mendum, the inscription of the vessel’s name on its prow was clearly visible.
Legacy of Perdition.
In the tumultuous wake of enormous flagship followed dozens of smaller craft. Frigates, strike cruisers, light escorts and support ships danced about the flanks of the huge barge like symbiotic fish feeding on skin of a larger creature. Two battle barges glided alongside the Legacy of Perdition; equal in size to their flagship but shadowed by their leader’s enigmatic glory. The fleet slid past the Ortus Mendum, flashing by the view ports that lined the ship’s command bridge, its member’s engines slowing their passage as it did so. It was then that the Ortus Mendum’s own engines engaged and the artificial gravity on the command bridge shifted slightly to compensate for the enormous centrifugal forces of the great ship coming about. The retreating fleet slid back into view as the Ortus Mendum turned to face it, accelerating to reach a set of coordinates that had recently appeared on the commander’s view screen and had been overlayed in a ghostly green trail of light over the main viewport; a path that led directly into the heart of the fleet.
